This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

Middle Fork of the Crazy Woman river

It’s mid-August and along the Middle Fork of the Crazy Woman river up near the northern border of Wyoming the grass is turning that shade somewhere between old gold and burnished copper. There is still green grass along the river’s edge but further out only yards away the green stopped and botanical fire started. At least that’s what it resembled when the sun was sinking and the wind blew, and it was blowing today. The tall grass fronds were frantically moving back and forth as if to uproot themselves from the very earth that nourished them, their deep color even richer in the late afternoon sun. Their seed heads rasping together made a slight crackling sound like when you stroke a cat’s fur until it raises up and sticks to your hand. The hot wind made wave patterns in the sea of grass swirling the long nodding tops together, showing its path as it swept by. Cloud shadows drifted across the river, here narrow enough you could almost straddle it, then swept across the grass making the copper color look red from the contrast like a slowly burning flame seen from a distance at night.

The antelope herd that was making short thrift of all the green grass they could eat had their backs turned into it, not the way horses do but simply keeping the dust out of their eyes while they fed as rapidly as they could. One large buck kept a wary eye on the surrounding prairie. No wolves or coyotes today but you never knew when that other hunter, man, might suddenly rise up out of the tall grass to kill you. The young ones, this spring’s addition to the herd, grazed a little, but some were still nursing when they weren’t racing along the river at breakneck speed. The wind didn’t bother them, in fact it seemed to add to their speed, picking them up and pushing them until their tiny black hooves were simply a blur as they tried to out race the wind.

Crazy Woman river isn’t too far from the Crow reservation. In the old days one of the tribes, whether it was the Crow or Shoshone or the Bannock, maybe even the Blackfeet down from the Canadian border on a hunting trip or a killing trip, would be concealed downwind watching and waiting for one of the Antelope to wander away from the safety of the herd. Antelope liver with some wild onions over an open fire would be a gift from the spirits tonight. This had to be a stalking hunt, there was no way even the fastest pony could run down an Antelope. So whichever brave brought down one of these would be a mighty hunter indeed.

It is still fearsomely hot, more so with the wind blowing hard enough to lay down the grass. Too hot even for the Antelope to lay down in the shade if there was any shade. Looking off across the valley towards the blue hazy mountains to the west, half hidden by the smoke from a distant wildfire and the heat haze, their shape barely realized, more of a violet smear across the horizon than an outline, heat can be seen rising in a visible shield, everything behind it contorted and shapeless, exaggerated past the point of recognition. Since the early people didn’t think in Fahrenheit, hot was when the rocks were too hot to touch, and when the ponies refused to move without being beaten, when no clothes were too many.  It is a time when a person would burn red in the sun if he was too crazy to find shade. This is the time to find shelter and a place to wait out the worst of it.

This is the way it is today on the Middle Fork of the Crazy Woman river and this is the way it had to have been then, when the tribes roamed free and life was different. This is a reminder of those days, made real by the smothering feel of the oppressive heat and the searing burning intensity of the wind across unprotected skin. The difference between then and now is time. Without our air conditioning and our ability to travel through and away from discomfort quickly we’d be right out there as they were, back when you learned to live and adapt and prevail. Some of us would love it.